a lot of this is just sifting through the rubble in the aftermath. you're not going to find anything that's truly illuminating amongst the hyperbole, especially with how conjecture is being volleyed about. isaiah thomas was a "fan favorite" who was also derided by many. some are deeply upset at the loss of their favorite player; others are rejoicing in his absence. but the muckraking has kinda spun outta control at kf.com. we have a name for that around these parts, of course. it's The Dreaded Off-Season. still, i think many are vastly overestimating the circumstances surrounding isaiah thomas' departure...
IT is gone from sacramento for two primary reasons, and #1 is simply basketball-related: on-court chemistry was an issue when starting thomas alongside demarcus cousins and rudy gay. i've noted repeatedly since greivous vasquez and co. were traded for gay that starting three ball dominant 20 ppg scorers, none of whom are elite-level playmakers or defenders, was problematic for balance and team-wide chemistry. look at the entire history of the nba and you'll find little long-term success from such a roster construction. look at the more recent history of the nba, and you'll find nobody fool enough to try and construct a team so ludicrously top-heavy in its scoring distribution and so lacking in both its playmaking ability and its defensive ability...
recent "big three" configurations in san antonio, boston, and miami had experienced playmakers and defenders among them, as well as a willingness to defer to both their teammates and the gameplan at large. they also had top-tier head coaches who commanded respect from those marquee talents. these "big three"s worked in each instance because they were so much more than a trio of guys who could put the ball in the hoop. such was not the case in sacramento, and it's dangerous to bet the future on a particular "core" after completing a 28-win season in a brutally tough conference...
so why not bring thomas back as a sixth man, where he'd obviously cede more ground to cousins and gay? well, that brings us to reason #2 for why IT is no longer a king: he was always going to be an expensive acquisition in the specific role of sixth man. 4/$28 million is a lot for a bench player under the new CBA, even one as valuable as thomas. this is especially true after the carl landry signing. IT's biggest fans should rightfully point to that signing and complain that it doomed the kings to lose thomas this offseason. you can pay one player that kinda money to come off the bench for you; paying two guys that kinda money to come off the bench is just poor cap management, particularly if you're a losing team that's still attempting to solidify its starting unit...
the fact is that the kings priced themselves out of the market by playing thomas big time minutes in a starting job last season, allowing him to run wild in that job, while also failing to shorten his leash at any moment after granting him that job. that showed a tremendous lack of discipline on their part, and they were either unable or unwilling to move thomas at the trade deadline, which would have represented a more ideal scenario. now, given the realities of a worst case scenario, the kings ultimately decided that they didn't want to tie up a buncha salary (thus pushing themselves across the luxury tax threshold) to bring back an undersized, non-defensive, ball dominant PG, no matter how impressive his individual numbers were, no matter how hard he competes, no matter how much the fans love him, and no matter how much grant and jerry fawn over him...
the fact is that the team notched only 28 wins last season, and you don't go all-in on a trio of big-time scorers if you aren't absolutely sure that your win total will improve dramatically with time. demarcus cousins isn't going anywhere, and rudy gay appears to be a part of the kings' immediate future, as well. thus IT was clearly the odd man out. i know there has been a lot of talk in the last couple of months about how the kings were right around .500 with a "core" or a so-called "big three" of cousins/gay/thomas. and while .500 is certainly better than the .341 win percentage the kings finished with, it's not exactly world-beating stuff in the western conference, and there were always legitimate questions about the sustainability of such a pace. again, you're not going to get very far with a top-heavy, offensively-inclined set of players who have limited defensive and playmaking abilites. not in the west; there's a ceiling on such a team's development, and you need more balance on both sides of the ball than the kings were likely to achieve with a cousins/gay/thomas configuration...
ultimately, i don't think PDA was looking at a disappointingly inept ben mclemore, a lame duck jason thompson, and a woefully thin bench and thinking to himself, "boy, i sure wish cousins, gay, and thomas would pass to this collection of underachieving misfits." i think PDA was imagining his ideal roster (whatever that is), constructed around demarcus cousins and rudy gay, and he came to the conclusion that he couldn't make room for other players in the offense of his imagination with isaiah thomas dominating the ball as he is wont to do. cousins and gay will dominate the ball enough by themselves; but they're also willing passers, and with a shifting culture and the right kind of personnel decisions, this team might become a much more respectable haven for ball movement. thomas simply could not fit in such a starting unit, and he commanded more money than the kings could justify to bring him off the bench. it's not much more complicated than that, if you ask me...
